A Great Place for an Evening PaddleI made sure to take my nieces and nephew paddling the other week when they came to visit – it's an integral part of an Adirondack adventure, after all. Lake Colby is a great spot for an easy outing, so we all loaded into my large boat and set off. My niece Emily paddled in the bow, I was in the stern, and Rebecca and Tyler sat on Crazy Creek chairs in the middle... [Read More]

A Simple Suggestion Becomes a Vacation Plan In the depths of the winter (ok, it was actually spring according to the calendar), when we here in Lake Placid were still skiing on perfect snow but dreaming about green leaves and blue water, my husband made an off-handed suggestion: “Why don’t we reserve a campsite on Lower Saranac Lake for a week in June?" Anxious for a mental escape from... [Read More]

Saranac Lake has wonderful lodging and wellness venues. This year was the first time they were combined in a delightful weekend event. Which created a vortex of healing Adirondack vibrations!The Holistic Health Retreat & Conference was held on the weekend of May 16th & 17th, but I arrived Friday night to relax and enjoy the fine dining at the hosting property, the Lake Clear Lodge... [Read More]

Saranac Lake has a wonderful range of Adirondack campgrounds to choose from. Whether it's a full service RV hook-up or a tent in the wildest of the wilderness, we have a full range of very cool spots. Camping is a great way to really feel the wild places around us. Maybe it's that first cup of "cowboy coffee" as we listen to the loon cry over the lake. Maybe it's sitting around the... [Read More]

An In-depth Adirondacks Cycling Experience Guest Blogger: Jim Moore, Event Director • Cycle Adirondacks This August, Saranac Lake will host a new and unique event – Cycle Adirondacks, the first fully supported road-cycling tour of the Adirondack Park. The event will kick off with a celebration (which is open to the public) on Saturday, August 22, and finish a week later with a public “... [Read More]

My first stop at any waterpark has always been a ride of the river persuasion - be it lazy or rapid. There is something so thrilling about surrendering myself to the course of the river with the sun on my face. The amazon/rapids sort of rides are exhilarating, putting me in the mind frame of Disney's Pocahontas singing "just around the river bend," while the lazy rivers make me want to melt in... [Read More]

From Snow to Blooms!Each year, after a long Adirondack winter, it seems as if we finally say goodbye to snow and miraculously, there are suddenly wildflowers blooming everywhere! Coltsfoot, often mistaken for Dandelions, is one of the earliest spring wildflowers to bloom in the Adirondacks.Bluets is another early wildflower that grows in large clusters.On hikes, I begin to observe the psychedelic... [Read More]

First Hike of the SpringWith our snow melted and ski season over, it was time for Wren and I to take our inaugural hike of the season. We’ve been walking at places like the Bloomingdale Bog Trail and the railroad tracks behind Lake Colby, but we hadn’t done a proper hike yet this spring. And Baker Mountain is a great place to break in the hiking season.The sun and clouds had staged a skirmish... [Read More]

Seasons mean so much here in the Adirondacks. It is here, like no other place I’ve lived before, that they delineate themselves as wildly separate and distinct experiences. Each is filled with unique delights that can be obtained at no other time.Saranac Lake is a place which embraces all of them. We have festivals for each season, featuring the way each one is celebrated in the Adirondacks. I’m... [Read More]

Come to the Adirondacks. Where every day is Earth Day! Saranac Lake has some delightful lodging choices in the midst of all our nature. Our properties have often been in the family for generations, were built to fit into unique geographic features, and are all about participating in our Great Outdoors -- from anywhere.  easy being Green Audubon rarely bestows their highest... [Read More]

Mud season has arrived in the Adirondacks, which means 3 things: the sky is blue, the temps are mild, and for those of us who like to get outside, most of our winter activities have ended but the woods and waters aren't quite ready for summer fun. Now is a GREAT time to check out the local breweries and soak up some springtime rays along the way! This past Sunday, a few co-workers and I met up... [Read More]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Winter Carnival announces Summer Ice Palace  Saranac Lake, Adirondacks - April 1, 2015 - The overwhelming popularity of Saranac Lake’s historic Winter Carnival has led to the creation of a summer version. “We realize this is a special challenge,” said Summer Carnival coordinator Ima Gladd-Colby. “But since we don’t get those brutal summer temperatures we... [Read More]

The First Warm Days of SpringThe temperatures a few days last week broke into the 40s marking the beginning of spring skiing conditions across the region. The warm days and soft snow were a big change from the cold weather which had dominated our forecasts for much of the winter. It arrived right on time - after all, spring officially begins this coming weekend. Soft spring snow may be slow, but... [Read More]

Cold Weather Birding Winter birding in Saranac Lake and the rest of the Adirondacks often revolves around finding resident boreal species – not a bad consolation for a cold walk. And so, Wren and I have been out throughout the winter to find species like Black-backed Woodpecker, Gray Jay, and Boreal Chickadee. The past month has also brought Bohemian Waxwings – a winter specialty – from the... [Read More]

Does Bigfoot live in the Adirondacks? Or is he just here for a vacation? While discussions about Bigfoot can seem rather recent in our United States history, Native Americans have talked about Sasquatch for hundreds of years. Often considered a West Coast phenomenon, sightings have also appeared all over the Adirondacks, from Saranac Lake in the north to a famous sighting in Whitehall, in the... [Read More]

What is Adirondack style? It is a relaxed blending of the natural world with classic comfort elements. It was developed in the rugged wilderness, when a few innovative people arrived who were not intent on conquering and subduing the forces of nature. Instead, Adirondack style embraces and appreciates it. It is a way of seeking a partnership with nature. Architecture This difference... [Read More]

Using the Long Weekend to Go Birding My brother Dave recently took advantage of the long weekend and came up for some winter birding in our area. Saturday’s weather offered up light snow showers, but warmer temperatures than we’ve had of late, and we headed out with Wren to Bigelow Road to start our day. Despite the pleasant temperature, the road was quiet, although we did hear a Boreal... [Read More]

The Jackrabbit Trail in 3 Helpings -- Day 1: from Paul Smiths to McKenzie Pond RoadThe Jackrabbit Trail is a prime piece of cross-country skiing real estate in the Adirondack Park. This trail is roughly 35 miles in length and runs from Paul Smiths to Keene. However, the sections from McKenzie Pond Road to Keene are used much more than the Paul Smiths to Saranac Lake sections. Either way, the... [Read More]

Traveling North For CarnivalMy niece Rebecca has been asking to come to Winter Carnival in Saranac Lake the past couple years, but has always had conflicts with school and other obligations. This year her regular requests finally won my family over and they came north last weekend to enjoy the beginning of Carnival for the first time. They explored the ice palace both during the day and at night... [Read More]

A Bushwack snowshoe through the Debar Wild Forest Baldface Mountain weighing in at just less than 2900-feet in elevation has been itching at me for quite some time to visit, and this winter was my time. But to give you a little background in my fascination of this peak I will start with a small hike that led up to it. Debar Pond It was a warm day and I was exploring the region, doing... [Read More]

So you just got engaged. Congratulations! The next step is to get married. And of course you want to get married in Saranac Lake, because there’s no better place to do it. So how does one go about making that happen?Though I’ve lived through a lot of wedding planning with a lot of friends, I’ve never been married, so I thought I’d talk to a professional to write this blog post about planning a... [Read More]

By far my favorite thing about Saranac Lake Winter Carnival is the abundance of live music all over town. The Waterhole has a great lineup this year, including Moon Hooch and Donna the Buffalo, among others, and additional venues are stepping up their music game as well. Eric Munley, who books bands for the Waterhole, told me that he originally thought about trying to get all '60s-style bands,... [Read More]

New Snow, New Tracks As the day warmed from its initially cold beginning, Wren and I took an afternoon this week to hike into the McKenzie Mountain Wilderness Area from the Haystack Mountain Trailhead along Route 86 in Ray Brook. The day had started out not only cold, but clear and blue. Gradually the clouds drifted in to blot out the sun before we departed, but the afternoon was pleasant, and... [Read More]

Saranac Lake has a long history of building amazing structures from ice as a centerpiece of their Winter Carnival festivities. Throughout the cycles of our village's famous winter festival, the Ice Palace has been both a focal point and a marker of what our Winter Break signifies in our history.At its heart, it is a reminder of how it all started, with the cycle of the seasons. In summer,... [Read More]